The Ōtsutsuki clan (大筒木一族, Ōtsutsuki Ichizoku) is a family of extra-terrestrials. After part of the clan's arrival on Earth a millennium ago, the Ōtsutsuki began having a lasting influence on the human population, notably starting the history of shinobi.[1]

Contents

History

Since an unspecified time in the distant past, the Ōtsutsuki have been travelling through different dimensions seeking out worlds with the God Tree. Once they find such a world, they harvest the god trees' fruit so that they can use its chakra to gain power and prolong their lives. In the case of Momoshiki, Kinshiki, and their ancestors, they would remain on a world until the God Tree was dead and the world could no longer support life, at which point they would seek out a new one. In the case of Kaguya, she chose to settle on the world she found, Earth, and began fortifying it for whenever Momoshiki and the others would come for the fruit of Earth's God Tree.

After consuming one of the God Tree's fruit, Kaguya used the chakra she gained to end the constant war of the Earth's human population. World peace was achieved and humanity initially regarded Kaguya as a benevolent deity. However, Kaguya's method of maintaining the peace by enslaving the world in a dream was viewed as a despotic misuse of her power. When she then started converting those trapped in dreams into a White Zetsu Army - which she planned to use to oppose Momoshiki's forthcoming arrival - the popular perception of Kaguya shifted from that of a goddess to that of a demon. Yet the human population could not oppose her.

In time, Kaguya gave birth to twin sons, Hagoromo and Hamura, both of whom were born with chakra of their own. Kaguya was jealous that they inherited some of her power and so merged with the Earth's God Tree to try and take it back, in the process becoming a monster called the Ten-Tails. In the anime, her sons also discovered she was converting humans into White Zetsu, and confronted her about it. The Ten-Tails terrorised the world until Hagoromo and Hamura defeated it with their Six Paths — Chibaku Tensei, thus creating the Moon. The Ten-Tails' chakra was sealed into Hagoromo while its husk, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, was placed on the Moon. Hamura relocated to the Moon with most of Earth's other Ōtsutsuki settlers so that they could guard the Demonic Statue and so that they would not interfere with Hagoromo's plans for the human population.

Humanity revered Hagoromo for his role in stopping the Ten-Tails and came to regard him as the "Sage of Six Paths". He shared his chakra with them and taught them ninshū, a way by which they could use their chakra to understand each other and preserve the peace. Towards the end of his life, he divided his chakra into the nine tailed beasts, his way of ensuring that the Ten-Tails and thus Kaguya would never be reborn. Before he died, he passed over his eldest son, Indra, and entrusted his mission of peace to his youngest son, Asura. Hamura would also die, but not before entrusting his fellow Ōtsutsuki with watching over humanity.

The Main family defeated by the Branch family.

Hagoromo and Hamura's respective legacies were corrupted over the following millennium: on Earth, Hagoromo's ninshū was re-purposed as ninjutsu, which the humans and the Ōtsutsuki's own descendants (the Senju, Uzumaki, Uchiha, Hyūga, and Kaguya clans) used for war, initiating the age of shinobi; on the Moon, the Ōtsutsuki split into "Main" and "Branch" families, the latter of whom wrongly believed that Hamura wanted them to destroy the Earth if humans were found to be unworthy of Hagoromo's teachings. The Branch family warred against the Main family over their different interpretations and eventually emerged victorious, though they were left on the brink of extinction from the fighting.

A thousand years after the Ten-Tails' defeat, members of the Ōtsutsuki clan return to human history: Kaguya is revived towards the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War and she attempts to create a new White Zetsu Army, but she is defeated again by Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha, the respective reincarnations of Asura and Indra; two years later, the last of the Moon's Ōtsutsuki, Toneri, tries to use the Moon to destroy the Earth per what he believes were Hamura's wishes, but he is stopped by Naruto and Hamura's true desires are relayed to him by Hinata Hyūga; over a decade later, Momoshiki and Kinshiki arrive on Earth and begin trying to harvest the world's chakra, but they are stopped by Naruto, Sasuke, and Boruto Uzumaki.

Abilities

The clan's main dōjutsu, the Byakugan.

The original Ōtsutsuki have pale complexions, with horns on their head also being common. Beyond appearances, however, it is difficult to discuss the Ōtsutsuki since not all of them possess the same abilities and the abilities that they do possess predate the modern terminology used by shinobi. All Ōtsutsuki have possessed at least one inborn skill, the Byakugan being the most prevalent with the potential of awakening the Tenseigan; Kaguya has the Rinne Sharingan and a predecessor ability of the Shikotsumyaku; Hagoromo and Momoshiki both have the Rinnegan, the former of which, in the anime, awakened it after manifesting the Sharingan and Mangekyō Sharingan. Another ability in the anime was the Wood Release as seen by Asura Ōtsutsuki.

Momoshiki claims that the Ōtsutsuki's greatest skill is their ability to use chakra, gaining strength, retain youth, and long life by ingesting it. Indeed, during the Fourth Shinobi World War, those with the Ten-Tails' chakra and even Kaguya herself are impervious to almost every shinobi skill and it is only by using Hagoromo's Six Paths chakra that she is ultimately defeated. Ōtsutsuki seem to remain unprecedentedly resilient even after they die: Hagoromo's soul lives on through his chakra, which itself travels through time so that he might help solve some of the issues that lingered after his death; Hamura's soul manifests before Hinata Hyūga for a similar purpose, giving her the means of stopping Toneri; Indra and Asura's chakra are repeatedly reborn in their descendants so that they can try to settle their age-old competition.

The Ōtsutsuki are very resourceful, evidenced by their ability to easily travel through different dimensions since before recorded history. They were able to colonise the Moon by creating the Tenseigan, which they further strengthened over the centuries by storing their Byakugan within it. From the Tenseigan they receive light, a habitable environment for themselves and other flora and fauna, power for their equipment, and the ability to control the Moon's movements. They can also use the Tenseigan to remotely control their automatons, a far more advanced precursor of the shinobi's Puppet Technique. When they were alive, Hagoromo and Hamura each used different seals to grant or restrict chakra, some of which persist or are rediscovered long after their deaths.

Trivia

The Ōtsutsuki clan Main Family's symbol.

"Ōtsutsuki" (大筒木) roughly means "big bamboo tree" and is derived from an obscure passage in the second volume of the Kojiki about the genealogies of Emperor Suinin, eleventh emperor of Japan, which states that he had a consort named Kaguyahime no Mikoto (迦具夜比売命), the daughter of a king named Ōtsutsukitarine no Miko (大筒木垂根王); tradition holds that these individuals served as the basis for Princess Kaguya and the old bamboo cutter in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

During the clan's civil war, the main and branch families used different emblems to set each other apart: the main family used an eight-pointed sun ray, while the branch family used a combination of the Six Paths Yin and Yang symbols, a crescent moon and a sun.

The Ōtsutsuki clansmen on the Moon donned ceremonial kimonos (with various decorations from the back) with sash tied over the right shoulder and shinobi sandals. In battle, they donned a turban, a mask over the lower-half of their face, a white vest, purple sash, purple pants and a purple long-sleeve shirt with bandages over their arms and feet, and additionally using long robes for commander level.

Hinata is referred to by the entire clan as the "Byakugan Princess" (白眼の姫, Byakugan no Hime, Literally meaning: White Eye Princess). The reason for the title is not explained, but by having it, Hinata is immune to Toneri's chakra drain and she is the only individual who can destroy the Tenseigan.